Definitely a TOP FIVE fave for me, and it was my very first fave, I’d say A Sword of Frost is first, Qi Wei Shang is 1.5, and Kaleidoscope of Death is second in terms of ranking right now. I was waiting for the manhua to actually come out with the first chapter (the empty listing and teaser have been up for MONTHS) so I can put more like photos I suppose, but that ain’t gonna happen yet. There’s a healthy translation in terms of progress going on right now if I recall, so this is something you may wanna try!
This is Xi Zi Xu’s MOST popular and defining work I think, and for good reason!
Lin Qiushi’s cat suddenly stops letting him close to her one day without any reason. Shortly after, on a regular, ordinary day as he fishes out his keys for the door to his apartment, 12 doors appear in front of him, with a clear door number #1 presented to him, and 11 other doors shut and locked. Time seems to have stopped too, and he has no choice but to pull open the door and be sucked in.
He emerges out on this snowy path and sees a beautiful, tall woman dressed in white, Ruan Baijie, and they both decide to find out what’s going on together. They end up at a village where other people are gathered in this wooden house, some of them looking numb, and others looking fearful. The stand-in leader of the pack explains to Lin Qiushi and Ruan Baijie, who they term ‘newbies’, that they’ve been pulled into the Doors’ World, where each of them basically have to complete tasks, stay out of the way of trouble, and find out where the key and door to escape this world are. This seems like a world and setting you see in games, but the catch is this: If one dies inside the door, they will die again outside the door for certain.
Lin Qiushi isn’t very sure what’s going on, but Ruan Baijie is keeping him plenty distracted with her antics, and while she seems weak and coy at the same time, LQS knows that she’s not simple and also feels a strange sense of safety when she’s around. On their first night, LQS rooms together with RBJ, and he ends up waking up in the middle of the nigh to see RBJ sitting at the end of the bed, back facing him, and talking strangely. In the haze of sleep, LQS doesn’t realize what’s wrong, until he shifts in bed and realizes that RBJ is sleeping right next to him, so who exactly is this person sitting at the end of the bed?
The next day, two people end up dead, their bodies eaten and blood drenching walls, ceilings and floors, much to the terror of other players. LQS then realizes that this is not a simple game, and has to work with RBJ to leave this world.
He later finds out that RBJ isn’t all that she seems (firstly, she’s not a woman), and has to find a way out of all twelve doors before his time up. The doors symbolize a second chance, as people who are sucked into these doors are those who are about to die, whether by illness, accident or anything else, and everytime someone goes into a door and makes it out alive will find that they’ve either avoided the fatal accident that was meant to happen if they did not pass the door test, or that their fatal illnesses or diseases have suddenly improved by leaps and bounds in the matter of minutes.
Novel (Online) | Novel (Print) | Novel Translations | Manhua - Teaser listing was up for a bit and now it’s down ;-; I don’t know when we’ll ever get em
1. 林秋石 Lin Qiu Shi (Blond hair) - A designer who has never had a girlfriend and is a cat fanatic (he loves his cat Li Zi), and so is devastated when she stops giving him attention. He’s pulled into his first door with RBJ, and treats her very well, even though this woman is taller than him, and is seemingly more courageous and scheming than he is. She’s also really dramatic, and LQS doesn’t really know whether to be fond or exasperated of this strange woman he just met, but considering that they have to evade a long-neck cannibalistic, vengeful female god together. At the end of it, he and RBJ are the first to find the door and get through it, although RBJ pushes him down into the well first and lets him leave.
Ruan Nan Zhu, other male lead, said once that some people seem to be born to take on the doors. No one knows what the doors are, how they came to form, what they mean etc., but while most people are naturally always afraid of what happens in doors, LQS has shown amazing adaptability, and is the only one who can match RNZ in terms of thought process etc. when they’re going through doors. LQS is the nurturing, gentle kind, the type you would want having your back in a crisis or apocalyptic meltdown, and he’s pretty oblivious to flirting attempts by RNZ in the beginning and thinks he’s just being dramatic (which is he is, but that’s besides the point).
LQS finds out also that he has Stage 4 cancer and is a few months away from dying, but as he passes and clears doors, his condition improves, and by the time he’s on his 3rd or 4th door, his cancer has regressed into Stage 1. He cooked noodles for RNZ the first time they met, and from then on RNZ likes eating the food he cooks. RNZ also suddenly pierces LQS’s ear with a special earstud and he’s all like “you’re weird, but sure okay” - basically LQS is the epitome of chill + cozy + warm dude
2. 阮南烛 Ruan Nan Zhu - I don’t even know how to describe him except for the fact that he’s a serial crossdresser, is GORGEOUS af and can pull off any female or male look. When he’s inside the door, sometimes he likes dressing up as a girl to blindside other ‘opponents’ - he’s mysterious, incredibly dramatic and loves it when other women fight with him because they’re uncomfortable with how he looks/acts, will always win an argument, and is also the leader of Black Obsidian (I think that’s the stone…?), an organization of people like them who stay together, taking on requests to help others get through their doors alive, and clear doors themselves.
He takes a liking to LQS in the beginning for how calm and considerate he is in the face of death, and in environments and situations inside the doors that actually force people to turn on each other. He also likes that LQS is kind, but doesn’t have a saviour-complex, who thinks that he is able to save everyone inside the doors at the first sign of trouble.
3. 程千里 Cheng Qian Li - Cute 17 year old boy who’s kind of dumb and oblivious, and has a twin brother called Yi Xie. He’s afraid of ghosts and cannot even watch a horror movie without screaming, and talks a bit too much, but he’s the baby of the Black Obsidian family, and has a corgi called Toast. He’s very happy-go-lucky, can never take anything seriously (not deliberately, he’s just kind of like a himbo), and gets the most hair ruffles from RNZ and LQS. He also lovessss his older twi brother dearly, even though Yi Xie is always scolding him or glaring at him. The kind that knows he’s stupid and dumb usually, but not when it counts.
4. 程一榭 Cheng Yi Xie - Qian Li’s older twin brother, very quiet, always kind of glowering, but loves Qian Li a lot and his only wish is for him to survive, even at the expense of himself. He entered the world of the doors much earlier (a few years if I recall) than Qian Li did, and disappeared from home very young as he cleared his first few doors, then went back and fetched Qian Li to Black Obsidian a few years later when Qian Li fell sick of the same disease and their mother begged Yi Xie to save him. Qian Li is his baobei brother, and his life’s number one priority. And because he wants to ensure that Qian Li survives the doors, he devises a way to take a shortcut through the door system, but RNZ doesn’t approve of the measures he’s taking for this.
Other Things I Like in the Novel:
LQS is really, really a cat fanatic, like RNZ suggests that he moves into the mansion where all Black Obsidian members are staying at, and he’s like… nah… I don’t want, I’ll think about it, and then the moment Qian Li says, “If you come over, maybe your cat will let you touch her again!” - And cue LQS going “Okay yes definitely, when and how do I move over?”
He likes to breathe his cat in, like put his nose to his cat’s belly and breathe in? And he can only do that now with RNZ around, because the cat lets RNZ pick her up, and the first time RNZ holds her and offers her belly up to LQS, LQS is so grateful and he bends his head to sniff, but the position made it look like he was giving RNZ a BJ, and it’s farking hilariousssss cuz everyone walked in and was like “Oh damn sorry, lemme do a u-turn and bleach my eyes out-” while LQS is like “NO IT’S NOT WHAT U THINK”
Female version of RNZ inside the doors is sooooo dramatic? Like the first time and the first door, where RBJ and LQS share the same room tgt and they see the long neck female ghost at the end of the bed right, and LQS’s reaction was to talk to the ghost “can you please go scare someone else before i wet my pants because i only have this one pair” and RBJ wakes up and she sees the ghost and immediately goes, “Lin Qiu Shi how can you do this to me! It’s been only one night and you’ve found someone else, how can you abandon me” and LQS is like “…. we are about to die, can you keep the drama for later” XDDDDD
And then RBJ ran wayyyy faster than LQS when they were being chased by the same ghost, and LQS was like “can you pls slow down next time” and RBJ is like “nope, no one gonna be responsible if i die if i don’t run fast enough” LMAOOO
Every time before Qian Li goes into the door, he has a habit of watching horror movies and trying not to scream but he always screams and disturbs everyone else lmao and Yi Xie has to come in and threaten him like “if you don’t sleep now i will do this” HAHAHAHA
Someone midway through the novel falls in love with female!RNZ but hates RNZ, and everyone is like.. damn, who’s gonna tell him
RNZ has made everyone in the team cross dress at least once, and LQS had to do it twice, and because he doesn’t know how to disguise his own voice like RNZ does, he was mute for both doors XD
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
prguitarman
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